Whatbird.com

Splash:

Hey featherbrain,

    There is also no substitute for seeing something with your own eyes but unfortunately it is also impossible to have someone see through and or with your eyes.

 

Actually, you can have somebody see "through your own eyes", post a picture or a video and all of us would be happy to look at it. We're in North America, unless we have plenty of evidence that there are Yellow-billed Blue Finches at peoples feeders here, then we are going to continue to say INBU, as that is the most likely. In the bird world you have to go with the most likely unless you have sufficient evidence to prove that it isn't.

Please, anybody who has one of these birds and thinks it is probably a Yellow-billed Blue Finch, post a photo or video.

I like how Privatepig put it, birds can appear totally different depending on the angle or the sun light.

 

 

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featherbrain

Try out my photo quiz!

Life is simple: Eat, Sleep, and BIRD!

"Walk softly and carry a big scope!"

Wow Featherbrain,

   Do you even read what I write, try to comprehend what is posted? Look I have seen Indigo Buntings and I know how they appear in all types light and from every conceivable angle, the bird visiting my feeder recently is not a *#@^$#!% Indigo Bunting. I can't make it any clearer than that so if it doesn't sink in then I give up.

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"An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind." M.K. Gandhi

hey Splash

 science doesnt accept anything less than proof...rumors of the ivory billed woodpeckers have been floating around for yeears, but no photos means no ivory billed woodpecker...that is why science has gone into the swamp with cameras to produce the evidence...when you show photos, science says yes...if you are so sure what it ISN'T ..take some photos... it is that easy

Yes, Splash, please, please try to get a photo! Like birdseye said, you won't convince "science" without proof, in other words, a photograph.

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Art Thread

Just a couple of things...

 1.  I don't think the person with 4 posts on the forum (Splash) should really be speaking as if he's a superior birder to the person with 400+ posts (featherbrain), but that's just me...

2.  Splash, you've seen the indigo bunting in all types of light and from every conceivable angle?  In that case, cancel out my previous comment, because you clearly have been studying indigo buntings for many, many years...

The simple fact of the matter is that, while you whole-heartedly believe that it is NOT an indigo bunting, you need to give concrete PROOF that it isn't to the rest of us, and that's really only going to be from a picture or video....   the description people have been giving is that of an indigo bunting, minus the yellow bill, and if it sounds like an indigo bunting, looks like an indigo bunting, and lives in the indigo bunting's range (which, as people have pointed out, is on an entirely different CONTINENT from the yellow-billed blue finch), then it's probably an indigo bunting. 

Finally, I say that we capture about two dozen or so indigo buntings and release them in one or two Brazilian towns, then monitor the South American birding forums...   see if we can't get them to argue about the "gray-billed blue finch" that's suddenly been showing up to people's feeders.   

Oh My Dear (Insert your Deity here),

  I give up, first of all what does the amount of posts have to do with the ability and or quality of an observer? Answer...Nothing! but that's just me I guess. Secondly, how do condescending remarks help, do they foster a supportive group atmosphere with a spirit of cooperation and do they help solve a mystery/problem? Answer NO!

If you guys took your heads out of your asses long enough you would have seen/realized a few things...

1) I said, in my very first post, I would do everything in my power to get a viable photo or video.

2) I described what I saw as accurately as I could.

3) I never claimed to have seen a specific species I only indicated which I did not see.

4) I faced opinions backed by belief, they are impossible to change. Open unbiased minds are paramount but I have not had the pleasure of dealing with one in this thread.  

BTW IndianaBirdLover your final solution is so ingenuous...er...I mean ingenious that the Indigo Buntings bills are glowing yellow in the presence of your brilliance. I'm so outta here, this is obviously not the place for me.

 

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"An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind." M.K. Gandhi

Yeah, I apologize for the condescending remarks, but I would like to politely point out that you haven't exactly fostered a supportive group atmosphere either.  I think a lot of people are just starting to get very frustrated with this thread, myself included.  I hope you are able to get a picture of your bird that will help close this thread once and for all.  And the comment about the number of posts was me simply trying to point out that Featherbrain has posted many, many helpful comments on this forum and has earned my respect as a very good birder; I'm sorry if that came out in the wrong way.

 

On a side note, while looking around for blue and indigo bunting pictures, I found this one and found it interesting...  my favorite part is the comment that says "notice the chalk white bill", though the bill appears to be very yellow in the picture.

 

Another oddity about that photo is that the legs and feet are also yellow to my eye.  This is incorrect.  They should be dark blue or blackish.

Here's what "Birds of North America" says about the bill/gape color of Indigo Buntings:

Males (adults in breeding season): upper mandible blackish, especially on culmen, lower mandible including the mandibular rami blue-gray, the gonys blackish. First-year males have yellowish gape into May, then it becomes dark gray. Females: upper mandible brown to blackish, the lower mandible pinkish horn color, the gape in spring yellowish until nesting when it changes to horn color. Males and females, all ages, nonbreeding season: bill paler, whitish to brownish or blue-gray, gape yellowish; the gape first appearing yellowish during molt in late summer.

 For what it's worth, I've noticed that color perception varies remarkable among individual observers.  I have a slide of a Flesh-footed Shearwater and when I ask my class what the bill color is, half will say "pink" and half will say "yellow."  To my eye, it's clearly pink and pink and yellow are not even closely related colors in my view.

The problem of perception is most pronounced when the colors are pale.  Light yellow and light pink are more likely to be confused than dark yellow and dark pink.  I'm not sure why, but I am sure that some people see colors differently than I do.

I am tasked with evaluating bird descriptions as part of volunteer work I do and I have been amazed when people see yellow on the underparts of Greater Pewee.  I have never seen any yellow there and the accompanying photos of these Greater Pewees do not show any yellow that I can see.  Yet the photos are clearly Greater Pewees.

Perhaps some people have a more sensitive eye or keener sense of color than others.  Perhaps it's just a matter of comunication or differences in terminology.  I don't know.

Personally I find this entire thread fascinating.  I won't go so far as to liken it to sightings of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster, but like those legends, this yellow-billed blue bird has attracted its own loyal following.  

In discussing accounts of alien abductions, Carl Sagan said "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."  I'm not sure how extraordinary a claim of an Indigo Bunting with a bill that is described as "yellow" is, but certainly a claim of a Brazillian Yellow-billed Blue Finch does requrie some substantiation besides eyewitness assertions.  Furthermore the documentation would need to be peer reviewed by the AOU and ABA Check-List committees as this would be a new bird for North America and a fantastic discovery.  

It can be frustrating when one sees an unknown bird to be told it's actually a common species, but it's part of the learning process to deal with an intrenched skepticism of extraordinary claims.  I've seen people get so discouraged that they stop watching birds and that is really too bad.  

Personally I learned more from people who challenged my claims than people who did not.  I developed a more rigorous approach to birding by diligently trying to describe in direct field notes the birds I was seeing.  I routinely submitted my sightings to appropriate records committees.  Some were accepted, some were not.  Usually the ones that were not accepted were because my documentation was inadequate, not because I didn't actually see the bird I was claiming.  That's the way it should be.  I'm not offended by it.  On the contrary, it means that I need to study these birds more critically and in doing so I learned more about them and had a more intense experience the next time.  I learned of more field marks to look for and more about individual variation, geographic variation, etc.  

Well sorry to ramble on.  As I said, this has been a fascinating thread.  It may tell us more about people than about birds, but people's perceptions form their reality and that's what we need to understand. 

 

 

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Joseph Morlan
Fall Birding Classes in San Francisco start October 28

This is the first solid explanation I've seen for an obviously yellow color on the bill of a small bright blue bird in North America.  Since posting on this site, I've noticed many times the lighter color of the lower part of the bill of the Indigo Bunting I see almost everyday, but I knew that was not what I had seen earlier in the season.  The color and size differences between mystery bird and the Iindigo Bunting are explained here too.  It was early in the season the bird may have been young and thus smaller, and the bright color here is what I saw earlier in the season.  I believe now I was seeing a young male Indigo Bunting, with a yellow bill who was smaller than the Bunting I see now (probably the same fellow), and with this seasonal super bright blue color. 

 Thank you!  This puts the issue to rest for me.  I wish this info had been posted sooner.  

-Brian

Congratulation Joe

the voice of reason , and calmess prevails

you  stated clearly, what lots of us mumbled and stumbled over, and around...

thanks

 

I agree.  It is good to know that we could have been seeing a lighter bill.  It is much easier to accept the possibility of seeing an IB with perhaps a light colored bill, than just being dismissed as a bunch of people who are looking for a bird that just doesn't exist.  And at the risk of repeating myself yet again,  has anyone looked into the Blue Bunting?  I know that they are in Mexico and a rare one has been sighted in the south Western part of the United States.  I just wonder if there is the possibility that any of the sightings have been the BB.  If you put the Yellow Bill aside, there are still many discrepancies in the discriptions of the sightings and the IB.  I am not trying to keep all of you experience birders stuck on this subject, just trying to investigate another theory.  Please so not assume that I am aiming for trouble.  Thank you.

i dont think anyone ever said you couldnt be seeing a " lighter bill"... the problem arose when they used words like "banana yellow, and bright....etc...my book says the Blue Bunting has a black-grey beak...same color as the Indigo...so it could be view with the same color perception problems...like most of us have said... a photo would silence  the controversy, so...

Birdseye. I had to disable your forum email notifications because as I explained before, there is something wrong with your ISP and it is bouncing them back to us. I can't even send a message to you without getting it bounced so I am leaving it here, hope you find it.

Please do not turn notications back on. Use a different email service. .

Thanks

Mitch

Hey Mitch

ok... i changed the email address to rmorgan314@juno.com

hopefully that works..i do get email on that oldguyrich account, for some reason, just not from here!? computers...great when they work..not so when they dont

hope things are fixed

thanks for your patience

Dalang,

Blue Bunting would be almost as unlikely as Yellow-billed Blue Finch. They rarely even come to the southern US, so the chance of it being there is really low, although it could happen (once in a blue moon). In low lighting, Indigo Buntings can appear really dark and deep blue, so it was probably the lighting that made it look like a Blue Bunting.

 

 

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featherbrain

Try out my photo quiz!

Life is simple: Eat, Sleep, and BIRD!

"Walk softly and carry a big scope!"